Granby Dam, Arapaho National Recreation Area

Granby Dam is an earthfill dam that dams the Colorado River 5.5 miles northeast of Granby, Colorado in Grand County, Colorado. This 298-foot -tall dam was constructed between 1941 and 1950 and has a drainage area of 311 square miles. The Granby Dam's reservoir is known as Lake Granby, the largest reservoir component of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project. Lake Granby stores Colorado River water that is diverted under the Continental Divide for agriculture and municipal use within north-eastern Colorado including the cities of Boulder, Fort Collins, Loveland, and Greeley. In addition to the waters of the Colorado, water from Willow Creek just below the dam is pumped up 175 feet to Lake Granby. Water from Lake Granby is pumped 125 feet higher by the Granby Pumping Plant to the Granby Pump Canal, which extents 1.8 miles to Shadow Mountain Lake, from which water is diverted through the Alva B. Adams Tunnel to the East Slope. ()